


ebb and flow

by jenuyu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Jaemin's Mark Complex, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenuyu/pseuds/jenuyu
Summary: “I’m going to ask Donghyuck to marry me tomorrow,” Mark says abruptly, his eyes bright and a little wild, and Jaemin blinks. Is he finally going crazy? It’s only been seventeen-going-on-eighteen years of having to endure all of Mark’s and Donghyuck’s bullshit, so. Probably.“What the fu—”“Shh!” Mark hisses, slapping a hand over Jaemin’s mouth. “Don’t be too loud, he’s going to hear you!”“He’s not even here!” Jaemin hisses back, wrenching Mark’s hand away. “What the fuck, are you insane?Donghyuck, really? If you make him your consort, he’s going to run this country into the ground!”(the one where prince mark falls overboard at his own party and gets rescued by a merman who later shows up at jaemin’s house sopping wet. with legs!)





	ebb and flow

**Author's Note:**

> wish [i](https://twitter.com/jenoluv00/status/1070244250212659200) could be part of [your](https://twitter.com/najaeminnet/status/1038380971169476608) world

As long as Jaemin can remember, it’s always been the three of them: him, Donghyuck, and Mark growing up together and playing in the palace gardens and getting lost in the forest and chasing each other down the shores. It’s always been the three of them, Donghyuck leading the way and Mark and Jaemin following, ready to pick up the pieces of whatever crazy but unusually well thought out plan Donghyuck’s come up with this time.

Jaemin’s fairly certain that nothing’s going to change between them. At least, until the day of Mark’s nineteenth birthday. The royal family pulled out all the stops for their younger prince’s coming of age, decorating a ship with all sorts of ribbons and bells for the party, and Jaemin’s even heard a rumor that the Crown Prince, Taeyong, might even be returning from his overseas expedition to attend the festivities later in the week.

Mark asks Jaemin to help him fix his clothes for the party, pulling him into an empty room, and Jaemin picks at a flower one of the servants carefully knotted into his shirt to match the laces on his shoes. Jaemin doesn’t often feel the gap that he knows exists between them, with Mark being the country’s second prince and Jaemin just the son of a high-ranking merchant and an aristocrat, but he feels it now, when Mark looks as ready as he’s ever been to become an adult.

“Your clothes look fine, Mark,” Jaemin says, already backing out of the room, “so if you’ll excuse me, I have a fight to pick with that kid from overseas who called me a twig the last time you had a party. I haven’t been working out for nothing.”

“I’m going to ask Donghyuck to marry me tomorrow,” Mark says abruptly, his eyes bright and a little wild, and Jaemin blinks. Is he finally going crazy? It’s only been seventeen-going-on-eighteen years of having to endure all of Mark’s and Donghyuck’s bullshit, so. Probably.

“What the fu—”

“Shh!” Mark hisses, slapping a hand over Jaemin’s mouth. “Don’t be too loud, he’s going to hear you!”

“He’s not even here!” Jaemin hisses back, wrenching Mark’s hand away. “What the fuck, are you insane? _Donghyuck_ , really? If you make him your consort, he’s going to run this country into the ground!”

“Did someone say my name?” Donghyuck asks, waltzing into the room and fixing the two of them with a crooked grin, and Jaemin realizes that he really, really should’ve locked the door behind him. “Oh, what’s going on?”

Mark lets go of Jaemin, and now that Jaemin knows where to look and just why Mark’s been acting weirder than usual these past few weeks, he can make out an odd box-shaped lump in Mark’s pocket. That must be the ring, then.

“Nothing,” Mark lies badly, and Donghyuck squints at him.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing, you weirdo.”

“I said it’s nothing.”

Donghyuck leans forward to squint even more at Mark, nudging Jaemin out of the way. “Sounds like a liar. Are princes supposed to lie?”

“Are advisers’ sons supposed to talk to princes like that?”

“Only if they’re being little babies.”

Mark gasps, which is probably fifty percent sheer shock and fifty percent unbridled love, and Donghyuck lets out a roar of laughter before bounding out of the room and down the hallway. Jaemin can still hear his footsteps thundering down the marble tiles even as he leaves their immediate vicinity, and when he can’t hear anything anymore, he turns to Mark, an eyebrow raised.

“You really still want to marry him?”

Mark sighs, long-suffering. “Unfortunately.”

 

 

The party doesn’t officially start until sunset, when the ropes mooring the ship to the harbor will be loosened and they’ll set sail into the open sea, circling around their nation before returning to port. For now, though, Jaemin contents himself with milling around the crowd, playing nice with the aristocrats’ children. He can see Donghyuck hovering by Mark’s side in the distance, an insistent presence at his elbow fending off all of Mark’s potential suitors, and Jaemin thinks to himself that maybe Prince Consort Donghyuck doesn’t have that bad of a ring to it after all.

After half an hour or so, Donghyuck slinks up to where Jaemin’s been waiting by the railing and nursing some apple wine.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking that,” Donghyuck accuses, stabbing a finger into Jaemin’s chest, and Jaemin rolls his eyes.

“You’re not my mom, you can’t tell me what to do,” Jaemin sneers, and he holds the glass as far above his head as he can. “Try to get it from me, gremlin.”

Donghyuck narrows his eyes at Jaemin, which is all of the warning Jaemin gets before Donghyuck smacks Jaemin’s arm so hard that he loses his grip on the glass of wine, which sends it hurtling towards the ocean below them. They watch as it makes the tiniest splash as it hits the surface of the water before it disappears into the waves, and it’s a fairly apt metaphor for the direction Jaemin’s life is currently heading.

Sometimes, he really hates his life.

“Why,” Jaemin breathes out, long and drawn-out, betrayal etched into every syllable, and Donghyuck shrugs, careless and flippant.

“Dunno, I just felt like it. Also, the apple wine is shitty. Get the peach one instead next time, that one has a lot more flavor to it.”

Jaemin follows Donghyuck as he weaves through the crowd to go find a server with some peach wine, and Jaemin expertly dodges merchants eager to make use of his family’s supply routes and aristocrats trying to set him up with their children.

“If only they knew,” Donghyuck murmurs after the fifth nobleman tries to offer Jaemin his son’s hand in marriage.

“Knew what?”

“That you’re not as great as your face makes you out to be. Well, I guess once you open your mouth they realize you’re not all that, anyway. The stuff that comes out of your mouth sometimes, seriously.”

Jaemin opens his mouth to say _that’s not true, I have a very good brain to mouth filter_ before he clamps it shut, remembering that _that’s_ not true at all. “Asshole,” he mutters instead of a real reply, kicking at a plank. “I just have a lot of love to spread.”

Donghyuck snorts. “You can keep it.”

“You don’t even deserve my love,” is on the tip of Jaemin’s tongue when a loud gasp sounds out, followed by screams that mix in with the footsteps of everyone crowding to one end of the ship.

“Holy shit, what happened?” Jaemin asks instead, to no one in particular, and a noblewoman with long curling hair and sparkling jewels on her fingers turns to him and replies, “The prince just fell overboard.”

“Oh, that’s it? Whatever, Mark can swim,” Jaemin reasons, stepping back to let another noblewoman run to the side of the ship where Mark’s supposedly fallen into the water. He watches them watch the water for signs of Mark resurfacing, like it’s all some kind of sport. “I don’t know why everyone’s freaking out. He’ll be fine.”

“You’re right,” Donghyuck says. “He’s probably enjoying it, anyway. It’s been a while since he got to go for a swim, so just watch, we’ll see his big head bobbing above the water in no time.”

They cross their arms, staring into the sunset stretching out before them, and Jaemin spots an abandoned tray of peach wines, plucking a glass from the tray. The servers for the royal family are so considerate, taking the time to put their food and drinks down nicely even when the prince has fallen overboard.

“It’s good,” he says, taking a small sip, then a bigger one once he comes to the disappointing conclusion that the peach wine really is better than the apple wine. “Yeah, you were right.”

“I know,” Donghyuck says sagely, and he reaches for one as well. “I’m always right.”

 

 

By the time the sun disappears below the horizon, the search parties still haven’t found any sign of Mark, and now, Jaemin’s starting to freak out. The navy’s set out to find Mark, heading into the open ocean in rowboats to search for him. Most of the partygoers have left the ship, flocking to the shores to pull out their binoculars, and Jaemin and Donghyuck part ways, Jaemin heading southward and away from the crowds.

Jaemin picks through the boulders. He’s fairly certain the navy is going to get Mark, and soon, they’ll be back at the castle and everything will be great.

Then he trips on a piece of seaweed, faceplanting into the sand, and Jaemin’s honestly so, so tempted to just stay there. He considers it, too, before he decides this is behavior unbefitting of a nobleman and picks himself up, dusting off his clothes.

Jaemin pauses. And stares.

There, just a few meters right in front of him, are two figures, and he can make out Mark’s silhouette prone on the sand. The only question is just who the other person leaning over him is. Jaemin runs over as quickly as he can, stumbling in the sand again, and when he drops to his knees next to Mark, the other person lifts their head up to stare at Jaemin.

Jaemin doesn’t notice, reaching over to shake the prince’s shoulders. “Mark, holy shit, Mark. Are you okay?” He presses two fingers to Mark’s pulse point, and Mark only rolls over, coughing the water from his lungs, and Jaemin looks up. “Hey, thank you so much for saving him, who are—”

Jaemin’s voice dies in his throat.

He’s staring at an incredibly handsome face and dark eyes set in a pale face, at silky hair that curls at the ends and a broad expanse of milky skin, but that’s not what Jaemin’s focused on. All he can see is the multitude of scales that shine iridescent in the growing twilight, that line a long and curved tail that ends in a pair of fins, and Jaemin doesn’t know if he can believe his eyes.

“What _are_ you?” He whispers, hushed, and the other— person? the fish? the boy? at least, that’s what Jaemin assumes, given the looks of the being he’s staring at— only blinks at him, eyes unbelievably liquid, before pushing off of the sand and disappearing into the surf.

Jaemin stares at the water, at the black ocean, and he wonders if he’d just imagined the whole thing. Except he couldn’t have. There’s no possible explanation for how Mark was rescued from the water, if not for the presence of this mysterious savior, but that defies reality itself. He’s jerked out of his thoughts when Mark shifts again, rolling over to Jaemin’s side.

“What happened?” Mark croaks out, his voice raspy, and he turns his head to the side and coughs again. “I— holy shit, the party. What happened?”

“You fell overboard,” Jaemin says, faltering. He’s still struggling to make sense of what he saw. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Mark struggles to push himself up, and Jaemin practically falls over himself to help Mark get up. “You found me? I don’t remember anything anymore.”

“Hey, hey. Easy. You’re fine. I’ll get you back where you belong. Everyone’s been worried about you.”

Jaemin loops Mark’s arm around his shoulders, and as they head back to the twinkling lights of the castle, Jaemin takes one last look at the ocean.

There’s nothing there, and Jaemin doesn’t know what else he was expecting.

 

 

Donghyuck nearly cries.

“Mark, you absolute fucking _bastard_ ,” he seethes, before throwing himself onto Mark’s arm, the only part of Mark’s body Jaehyun, the royal physician, will let him touch. Jaemin stands to the side the way he did when Jaehyun was examining Mark for lasting damage, and when Mark reaches up to curl his arms around Donghyuck and pull him closer, Jaemin leaves.

He steps outside into the cool night air, and he starts walking aimlessly, letting the brisk weather calm his nerves. Before he knows it, his feet have taken him back to that spot on the beach where he found Mark. He stands there, staring into the ocean.

He just doesn’t know why he’s so damn surprised when someone pops up above the water, when that’s exactly what he’d unknowingly come in search for.

“Hi there,” Jaemin says, kneeling in the sand. Is he really talking to something that may or may not even exist? Is he finally going insane? Shit. Maybe.

The fishboy moves closer, holding something between webbed fingers, and when Jaemin extends his hand to take it, his breath catches.

It’s a small black box, and when Jaemin opens it, the ring is inside, its sparkle still evident in the darkness. He looks back at the fishboy. “He dropped this? Mark? When he fell in the water?”

The fishboy only blinks at him, head cocking to the side, and Jaemin could smack himself. What are the odds that the fishboy would understand him? Instead, he points at the box with his other hand before pointing to the ocean and miming picking the box up. The fishboy’s eyes light up, head nodding frantically, and Jaemin understands.

“You came back here to give the ring back, didn’t you?” Jaemin asks, and he doesn’t wait for a response that won’t come. “You saved Mark’s life and you even found this ring for him. Thank you.”

Jaemin leans forward even more, his knees digging into the wet sand and the tide brushing over his legs with every ebb and flow. He reaches out, and the fishboy’s hand is wet and cold against his own.

“Thank you,” Jaemin says, as sincerely as he can, and there’s something like recognition, something like understanding, in the fishboy’s eyes.

Jaemin leaves first this time, and when he looks back, the fishboy is still there, waving with a webbed hand at Jaemin before disappearing underneath the waves again, and Jaemin starts the walk back to the castle again.

 

 

When he comes back, no one asks Jaemin about how strange it was that he found Mark washed up on the beach, and Mark doesn’t even question it when Jaemin shows him the velvet box after Donghyuck’s left.

“I thought I dropped it,” Mark whispers, hushed, taking the box with trembling hands. Jaemin pretends not to see it, averting his eyes. “Thanks, Jaemin. I didn’t know you were trained in resuscitation, by the way.”

“I’m not, though?”

Mark’s smile turns into a frown. “Then how did you save me?”

 _Fuck._ “I, uhm.” You were saved by a fishboy, that’s what happened. Can Jaemin even say that without sounding like he’s gone off the deep end? “I was just lucky, I guess. It was my first time trying to save someone, and it had to be you. But you’re here now!”

“Hmm, I guess I have your luck to thank for my life, then,” Mark says, relaxing back into the pillows. “Was there anything else? Well, except for how much of a disappointment my birthday party ended up being.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Jaemin says, and he pauses. There are a few things racing through his mind— do you remember anything about who saved you? what were you thinking, falling off of the ship like that? do you believe in mermaids?— but he keeps it to himself. “You’re very lucky, you know,” Jaemin settles for saying, and Mark grins.

“I know,” he says simply, and that’s Jaemin’s cue to go home.

 

 

Life goes on.

On a hot summer night at the end of the week-long festivities for his birthday celebration, Mark proposes to Donghyuck, sinking to his knee in front of him and taking out the velvet box from his pocket and reciting the words he’s practiced to himself every day for weeks. Everyone watching does them a favor and pretends like they haven’t borne witness to the past few years of Mark’s awkward courtship and Donghyuck’s slightly more persistent and slightly less appropriate attempts at reciprocating. No one’s forgotten the incident from last year’s royal ball, after all, and Donghyuck would never let them.

Donghyuck only gives Mark enough time to slip the ring onto his finger before he launches himself squarely into Mark’s arms, and Mark barely has time to catch him and regain his balance before Donghyuck fits their mouths together.

An aristocrat’s daughter slides up to him, pressing herself against his side, and for once, Jaemin doesn’t lean down to smooth his careless hands over her hips, to tilt her chin up with a careful finger. He’s thinking about dark eyes and iridescent scales pockmarking smooth skin, and when he inhales a shaky breath, nothing but the salty sea air fills his nostrils.

She makes to leave when Jaemin doesn’t respond, but he jerks himself out of his memories, and he pulls her tight to him, smiling down at her the way he always does, and he almost feels bad.

But life goes on.

 

 

The skies are grey on the morning of Jaemin’s eighteenth birthday.

“Maybe the rains will subside,” Jaemin’s mother says, anxiously wringing her hands. Jaemin looks up at the clouds rolling in from the south, and he thinks to himself _of course,_ because of course this would be just his luck.

By afternoon, what began as a smattering of rain clouds and a light drizzle starts pounding against the windows as a torrential downpour. There’s no sign at all of Mark and Donghyuck, who were supposed to come over for a quick dinner, and Jaemin supposes that with the storm, he’ll be spending his birthday alone, since his parents have since left for the closest town to attend a merchants’ guild meeting, leaving behind a feast and well wishes.

Then there’s a sound on the door, and Jaemin looks over from where he’s been lounging on the couch, only to hear a clear knock, then two. The knocking continues, loud and insistent, for as long as it takes Jaemin to roll off of the couch and sprint across the foyer to the door and wrench it open and stare at the people on his front step.

“Thought you’d never open up,” Mark pants, brushing a sopping lock of hair out of his eyes with his free hand. Donghyuck’s next to him, and there’s someone in between them, someone who’s covered in a red and white checkered blanket. “You’re not going to invite us in?”

Jaemin moves away to let them in. “Who’s your friend?” Jaemin asks, following them over to the couch he just vacated, and Mark dumps the checkered bundle on the couch, and it makes a small noise. “Donghyuck, Mark, who the fuck is that?”

“Calm down, Jaemin,” Mark says at the same time Donghyuck says, “We have no idea,” and Mark turns to give Donghyuck a betrayed look. “Listen, so Donghyuck and I were getting a picnic basket ready for you.”

“I got the entire thing together,” Donghyuck says, rather unhelpfully. “Just so you don’t think Mark had the foresight to pack a dinner for you and plan out a platonically romantic birthday evening with you.”

“I so would have, but anyway,” Mark coughs into his fist. “As I was saying, Donghyuck and I were getting the basket ready for you, and he wanted to take a walk on the beach before we came over to your house.”

“Then it started raining. And Mark screamed like a little girl as soon as he felt the first raindrops on his poor, delicate skin.”

“Did not. That’s not true, but that’s also not the point, Donghyuck, stop interrupting me.” _He did_ , Donghyuck mouths at Jaemin behind Mark’s back. “We were running back here to your place, and there was this guy passed out on the beach, and there was no way I was just going to leave him there. So we picked him up and came here because your place is the closest.”

“That was in our picnic basket, by the way,” Donghyuck says, pointing to the red and white blanket. “He was stark naked with his ass in the air when we found him, so I decided to preserve Mark’s virgin eyes and throw the blanket over him before bringing him here. We should see if he’s alive, since he must still be out cold and I don’t know how long he was in the rain for, and in case you’re wondering, no, I have no idea what happened to the food.”

Donghyuck takes ahold of the edge of the blanket and peels it off just slightly, and Jaemin’s heart leaps into his throat. It’s a face he’s only ever seen illuminated by moonlight, and the sloping nose and high cheekbones are familiar to him only because he’s thought about them so many times. This almost doesn’t feel real, but it is, and Jaemin’s standing right in front of someone who shouldn’t even exist.

Jaemin moves on autopilot, taking one hesitant step closer, then another, before he’s right in front of the couch. He reaches forward, his hand smoothing over rain-soaked hair and his eyes tracing the delicate column of an exposed neck. The boy stirs, shifting to the side and blinking awake before Jaemin can touch his skin, and his mouth makes an “o” of surprise.

“What’s your name?” Mark asks, leaning in, and the boy jerks away like he’s been burnt, his hands coming up to clutch at Jaemin’s hands. His hands are so, so cold. Jaemin tries to warm his fingers up, but the boy takes it as a cue to tighten his already vice-like grip on Jaemin’s fingers.

“Do you know him?” Donghyuck asks, staring at their linked hands, and Jaemin shakes his head slowly.

“I— I don’t know. He looks familiar, but. I don’t know him.”

That’s a lie. The eyes confirm what Jaemin had been thinking, that this boy is the same one who dragged Mark from the depths from the ocean, the one who found the royal heirloom that now cozily hugs Donghyuck’s ring finger. His eyes are liquid and impossibly dark, just like the ocean had been on that night.

“We could shelter him, find him somewhere in town to stay. It’s your birthday, after all, we can deal with this situation,” Mark offers. Jaemin jerks his head upwards to stare at Mark, something like alarm burgeoning in his chest.

“No, no. It’s fine. We have so much space, and.” _And I need to find out what he’s doing here. If he’s really not human. Who he is._ “I don’t want to impose on the two of you. It’ll be fine, guys. I swear. I know you guys think I take in every stray dog I see, but it’s not every day you bring me a stray human.”

The joke falls flat. The concern on Mark’s face doesn’t dissipate, either, and Jaemin sighs, standing up and pulling the two of them to the side.

“Listen, it’s too early for the two of you to be acting like parents. Give it a few years, you can adopt some kid and try this good dad and bad dad routine out on that poor soul, but seriously. Thanks for bringing him here, I’ll find out where he’s from and where he needs to get to from here.”

“But it’s your birthday—”

“Best birthday of my life, then, am I right? My parents aren’t even here anymore, they left to go to a merchants’ guild meeting the next town over, so it doesn’t even matter anyway,” Jaemin laughs, and when neither Donghyuck nor Mark laughs with him, he frowns. “Oh, come on, really?”

“What if he’s dangerous? What if he tries to murder you? We have no idea where he’s from or what he’s capable of, are you trying to die?” Donghyuck hisses, and Jaemin snorts.

“He’s right here, dumbass. And please, he looks like he weighs as much as a dog sopping wet. I could take him, remember how I’ve been working out?” Jaemin flexes just to show off his arms again, and this time, it’s Donghyuck who snorts.

“Christ, someone’s overcompensating. Well, happy birthday, then,” Donghyuck mutters, and he tugs on Mark’s arm. “Maybe we should just leave you to it. No making out with mysterious washed-up boys, got it?”

Jaemin salutes him. “Wouldn’t ever dream of it.”

The storm has, miraculously enough, subsided. Jaemin sends the two of them off, waiting until they’re nothing but specks in the distance before he shuts the door and turns to face the boy.

He hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch at all. The red and white checkered blanket is still looped around his shoulders and hugging the very human curves of his body, and instead of looking around at Jaemin’s home, he’s staring down at his feet like it’s the first time he’s ever seen them and wiggling his toes.

“I saw you the other night,” Jaemin says plainly. The boy stares back up at him, and Jaemin clarifies, “In the ocean.” He mimics swimming, his arms cutting in front of him, and the boy’s face lights up before he nods furiously. “Oh, wonderful. So it really was you. I’m going insane.”

Because as much as Jaemin’s friends have tried to convince him otherwise, there is no such thing as the supernatural, and the very existence of the boy sitting in front of him on the couch contradicts all of the points he’s been bringing up to Donghyuck for the past decade. He’s fielded all of Donghyuck’s theories about the placements of the sun and the moon and the planets controlling the fates of humanity and all of Mark’s nonsense about people who live underneath the waves with rational logic, but all of it is slowly crumbling down around him.

The boy beams at him, his face splitting in a large smile, and Jaemin stares at him, with the red and white blanket around his shoulders and his feet that have probably never walked on land, and Jaemin’s only thought is that it’s going to be a long, long night.

 

 

“So,” Mark starts delicately, spooning jam onto his toast. “The boy.”

“So, the boy,” Jaemin parrots, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s hell-bent on not giving into any unasked questions, at least not until either Donghyuck or Mark asks him anything explicitly. He’s found out through the years that they’re exceptionally good at wheedling information out of him, information that he never really wanted to share in the first place.

“Is he still alive? Have your parents finally kicked you out for being, well, you?” Donghyuck’s eyes shine with an ever-present thirst for gossip. “Managed to figure out what the hell he was doing naked and facedown on the beach yet?”

“Yes, no, they’re not back yet, and yes. Well. Kind of.”

All things considered, last night wasn’t bad. The fishboy-turned-boy spent the entire night completely mute, and even though Jaemin made him open his mouth to confirm that he did, in fact, have a tongue, Jaemin couldn’t get him to speak the entire night. He only found out through making a series of noises that the fishboy wanted to be called Jeno, or some vague approximation of it, and Jeno had nodded approvingly at him before standing up and letting the blanket sink to the ground.

“Put on some damn clothes!” Jaemin screeched, and Jeno turned quizzically back to stare at him without a single trace of modesty in his eyes. Of course. Because why would a fishperson wear clothes? Jaemin only sighed, cursing his life, before frog-marching Jeno up to his room and dressing him in some of his own clothes. Then Jeno proceeded to follow Jaemin around like a lost puppy as he went about the rest of his night, Jaemin’s pajama shirt hanging off of his wiry frame and the hems of the pants trailing behind him on the floor. Jaemin made a note to himself to try to find some one pieces for Jeno to just slip on over his head, since pants seemed to be too complicated for him.

And when it came time for Jaemin to sink into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, Jeno stood over his bed until Jaemin re-lit the oil lamp and asked, “What are you still doing here?” and found himself with an armful of boy. It was near impossible to get Jeno off of Jaemin once he’d made himself comfortable, and Jaemin fell asleep like that, his arms curled around Jeno’s shoulders and Jeno’s head buried into Jaemin’s neck.

Donghyuck’s eyes are twinkling once Jaemin finishes telling his story.

“So,” Donghyuck croons, not at all subtle, “did you…?” He lets the question trail off, and Jaemin gapes at him.

“Dude,” Jaemin says. “ _Dude_.”

Donghyuck shrugs. “It looks like he was pretty into you, Jaemin. It’s not every day you get a damsel in distress showing up at your front door, throwing himself all over you and making eyes at you. I mean, this doesn’t usually happen to you, right?”

“He wasn’t making eyes at me, he was just trying to find someone to help him, and that someone ended up being me,” Jaemin counters, suddenly on the defensive. “And, _what_? I would never do anything to anyone who wasn’t into me, it’s obvious that he only came here to see—”

And then Jaemin stops.

Because he’s the only one who knows that Jeno isn’t of this world, that while he looks human, he’s anything but. Jaemin’s the only one who’s seen his glimmering tail and the only one who watched as he dove underneath the water to retrieve Donghyuck’s wedding ring from the depths of the ocean. Jaemin saw Jeno by Mark’s side as the prince struggled to breathe, and he’s the one whose dark and liquid eyes have been haunting Jaemin’s dreams for the past ten days.

It doesn’t make sense for Jeno to be up here. Jaemin’s heard stories about supernatural folk making deals to become human, to live as one of them, but Jaemin doesn’t understand why Jeno would give up the life he knew just to stand on wobbly legs and refuse to wear clothes. Jaemin can only think of one reason a fishperson— merpeople, Jaemin vaguely remembers Donghyuck telling him at one point in their childhood, mermen and mermaids are what they’re called, but he likes the term fishperson more, since it rolls off his tongue better— would give up their life in the ocean to come up on land for, and that’s love.

If Jeno only came up because he got attached to Mark and somehow developed a savior complex, there’s no way that he has a chance now. The diamond on Donghyuck’s ring finger glints in the morning sun, and Jaemin suddenly feels sick.

He should tell someone. But he can’t.

“Jaemin?” Donghyuck waves a hand in front of Jaemin’s face. “Are you okay? It was a joke.”

“Yeah.” Jaemin clears his throat. “I’m fine. Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Are fishpeople— wait, sorry, I mean mermaids, whatever— real?”

A beat.

“You’re starting to sound a little bit like Donghyuck,” Mark says, “but instead of asking about it, he’d just be telling you straight up that mermaids are real and he would absolutely love to bring one home with him.”

“You’re not wrong, I would. I really, really would love one. Hey, Mark, for my wedding gift, can you find one for me?”

For the sake of his own sanity, Jaemin ignores the question. Mark does, too, probably for a different reason than Jaemin, and Donghyuck bristles for two seconds before busying himself with scooping some food off of Mark’s plate. “So does that mean yes?”

“Absolutely yes, of course they’re real, what kind of stupid question is that?”

Mark shrugs. “I mean as far as I know, they’re just stories and legends, but some of the elders say that there were fishermen in the past who fell in love with mermaids who didn’t love them back. They jumped into the ocean to try to meet their loved ones, but. Well. Obviously, they drowned.”

 _Just like you almost did,_ Jaemin thinks. He says, instead, “Are these stories real?”

“I mean, _I_ think they’re real. Why are you asking?” Donghyuck asks in response. He leans forward, his eyebrows furrowing together. “You’ve never, ever asked about something like this. Who are you and what have you done with Jaemin?” Donghyuck then gasps, like he’s thought of something incredible. “It can’t be that boy we brought home, right? It can’t be that he’s the reason you’re asking about all this?”

Jaemin freezes because _damn Donghyuck and his scarily spot-on intuition_ , but Donghyuck’s already started steering the conversation in another direction. “But that reminds me, you never even answered our questions from before.”

“What questions? I’m not telling you anything weird, though.”

“Tell us more about the boy,” Mark suggests, cutting off a piece of his toast and stuffing it unceremoniously into his mouth. His eyes are bright with curiosity. “You talked to him last night, didn’t you? Who is he? Where is he from? What is he like?”

Jaemin can breathe again. They’re talking about things that don’t potentially involve the breakdown of Jaemin’s sanity and disbelief in all legends. This is good. He doesn’t know if the boy is really a merman or fishboy or whatever, but he’s not sure he wants Mark and Donghyuck to know anything yet.

“Well,” Jaemin hums, and he very carefully edits his memories of Jeno from last night to exclude all thoughts of how he came from the ocean, and he makes up a story of how he actually came from some village further in the heart of the island, “where do I even begin?”

 

 

When Jaemin gets back from lunch, Jeno is sitting on the ground, instead of on the couch like a normal human would. Of course, Jaemin thinks to himself, why would he even expect Jeno to be anywhere _but_ somewhere he’s not supposed to be?

“Hello,” Jaemin says, and Jeno’s attention snaps to him immediately before he scrambles to his feet and bounces over. He’s proud to note that Jeno, thankfully, still has his clothes on. Jaemin had been afraid he was going to come home to something he wasn’t quite ready to see, given Jeno’s lack of familiarity with the human invention of clothing. “Uh, hello. I wasn’t gone for too long. What gives?”

Jeno only stares at him, his eyes blinking up at him meaningfully, and, yeah, try as he might, Jaemin can’t decipher what it means. He’s up in Jaemin’s personal bubble before Jaemin even registers Jeno pattering towards him, and he runs his fingers up Jaemin’s side, poking at Jaemin’s stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Jaemin asks, edging away from Jeno’s wandering hands, and when even _that_ doesn’t work, he wraps his hands around Jeno’s wrists, holding them still. “What’s wrong, Jeno?”

And then Jaemin hears it: the telltale sound of Jeno’s stomach rumbling, and he realizes that Jeno must not have eaten at all ever since he came. He was too tired to eat dinner last night, and Jaemin was gone this morning for brunch. Jeno looks as startled by the sound as Jaemin is, his eyes going wide and his hands flying to press against his stomach. “Are you hungry?”

Jeno nods vigorously, and Jaemin rearranges his grip on Jeno’s wrist to help lead him forward. They’re already halfway to the kitchen before something clicks in his brain and he whirls around to face Jeno.

“You understand me!” There’s no doubt about it: he should’ve known something was up from the start, since Jeno seemed too aware of his surroundings when Mark and Donghyuck first brought him to Jaemin’s place. Everything falls into place: how quietly Jeno just did as Jaemin asked him to do and how easily Jeno agreed to stay with Jaemin instead of finding his way back home. “You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”

Caught, Jeno nods again, but slower this time.

“You’re not really a human, right? You’re from,” and here Jaemin makes a vague gesture, one that’s supposed to encompass the idea of the entirety of the ocean but ends up just being him waving his arms around in the direction of the shore, “there, right?”

Jeno shakes his head, then nods.

“You can’t speak?” Jaemin watches as Jeno whips his head from side to side almost violently before he takes another step forward. Jaemin’s hand comes up, and he tilts Jeno’s head upward. He brushes the pad of his thumb against Jeno’s lower lip, and his mouth falls slack, and, alright, Jeno has a tongue and teeth. “You don’t want to speak?”

Jeno huffs. He points at his throat, opening and closing his mouth like it’ll make Jaemin understand.

“There’s something wrong with your throat and that’s why you can’t speak?” Jeno seems to ponder the question before he nods and shrugs at the same time, and Jaemin resists the urge to rub his temples. “Okay. Well. Do you know how long you’ll be here for? My parents will be coming home in a week, maybe two.”

A shrug. Jeno’s stomach rumbles again, and he clutches at Jaemin’s hand, pressing his palm against his stomach. The expression on Jeno’s face seems to say something along the lines of “please feed me,” and Jaemin caves. He knows has an ungodly amount of food left, so he goes to find the pastries and morsels that his parents left behind for him in the kitchen. Jeno trails behind him, his footfalls coming softly right after Jaemin’s.

“Where were we,” Jaemin mutters, mostly to himself, and Jeno points at his own mouth. Jeno’s eyeing the food that Jaemin laid out in front of them, sandwiches and scones and danishes piled atop of one another. “Alright, yes, I know, but. Where were we? I still have questions.” In lieu of an answer, Jeno pushes the plate of food back towards Jaemin, crossing his fingers over his chest, and Jaemin stares at him. “What?”

Jeno mimes something cutting through water, pressing the palms of his hands together and wiggling them, and Jaemin blinks. “Fish? You want fish?” He asks, and Jeno nods. “Well, it’s too bad. You’ll eat this, because it’s too much work to go fishing when we have perfectly good food here.”

Jaemin picks up a sandwich and takes a bite out of it, chewing obnoxiously to try to get his point across. _See? This is good food. Good human food. Better to eat this than food that I have to actually go out and fish from the ocean for you._ He makes eye contact with Jeno as he does. “See? Tasty.”

Jeno gives him a wary look before plucking the sandwich Jaemin’s just taken a bite of out of his hand and stuffing the entire thing in his mouth, and it shouldn’t be as funny as it is when Jeno’s face contorts and he almost spits out the sandwich.

“Oh, please. Stop being so picky, it’s just egg and flour and salt and water. I’m sure you’ve had worse fish in the ocean.”

Jeno’s mouth flattens into a thin line, and he forces himself to swallow the sandwich. Jaemin watches his Adam’s apple bob, and when he’s made certain that Jeno swallowed it all, he nods approvingly before picking up another sandwich and holding it up to Jeno’s mouth.

“Here you are,” Jaemin coos. “Another sandwich for you to try. Cheese and tomato and lettuce this time if you even know what they are from down there in the ocean.”

Jeno takes the smallest bite out of the sandwich before he shrugs and swats it away. He picks up another one, tuna this time, and pops the entire thing in his mouth. Jaemin watches in awe.

“Tuna, then? What are you, a cat?” Jeno huffs at him, his lips pursing, and Jaemin laughs. “Alright, I get it. I get it. I know, you’re a fish. Fishperson. Merman. Yes, I _know_.”

Jaemin ends up having to leave their lunch early because Jeno’s just discovered the joys and wonders of eating utensils, but instead of actually using them to put food down his throat, Jeno uses them to whap Jaemin very hard on his arm once Jaemin starts asking too many questions that Jeno thinks are dumb. Examples include: Are there dolphin people instead of fish people anywhere? How do you sleep and eat underwater? Do fishpeople have nipples?

Jeno’s still sitting there smugly at the table when Jaemin comes back from staring at the wall and wondering if it’s possible to will away all of his problems, Jeno included. Despite Jeno’s pose, his hands laced in front of him on the table, it’s not beyond the realm of belief that Jeno is just waiting for Jaemin to lower his guard so that Jeno can hit him another ten times with the spoon.

“Once again, Jeno,” Jaemin remembers chastising him just earlier, “the smaller spoon is for the desserts, and the bigger spoon is for main courses and soups. Don’t get them confused.” And as expected, Jeno hit Jaemin another five times with the spoon for saying that.

Jaemin approaches the table warily. The spoons are off to the side, one, two, three, so he’s safe for now. Jeno pats the seat next to him, and Jaemin sinks down into the empty chair, angling his body just slightly away so he can avoid any future spoon-related injuries. Jeno reaches for the plates.

“Are you going to hit me with a spoon again? Because if you are, I _will_ hit you back with one,” Jaemin warns, and Jeno rolls his eyes. Instead, he picks up one of the sandwiches he refused to eat, and he presses it to Jaemin’s closed lips. He blinks. Jeno’s trying to feed him. Jeno pushes just slightly, and Jaemin opens his mouth obligingly even though he’s already eaten with Mark and Donghyuck. He chews, and Jeno reaches for another. “That’s okay, I’m full.”

Jeno pouts at him.

“No.”

Jeno’s pout deepens before he seems to get over it in a split second, reaching for another sandwich with tuna and munching on it. He’s done in what must be record time, and as he licks the residue off of his fingers, his eyes fixing onto Jaemin’s, Jaemin suddenly remembers a question he’s wanted to ask for a long, long time.

“There’s nothing for you up above the ocean, Jeno. Why are you here?”

Jeno blinks. He points at himself, then at Jaemin.

“Yes, yes, I know. You’re you, and I’m me. But why?” Jaemin asks, turning and leaning forward, and Jeno does the same. Jeno’s knees, knobby and pale, knock against Jaemin’s. Jeno doesn’t look away, even when Jaemin catches his gaze again. “You could’ve just stayed down there. Didn’t you have a family? Didn’t you have friends? You didn’t have to come up.”

Jeno tilts his head to the side, and his eyes dart to the large windows that give them a view of the beach. It’s past midday now, and if Jaemin strains his eyes and ears, he can see the swell of the tides. He can hear the waves crashing on the sand. He’s transported back to a fortnight ago, when they thought they’d lost Mark for good and the only one who could bring him back home was a boy from the depths of the ocean. He knows.

“That night on the beach,” Jaemin breathes out, and Jeno stills. His fingers find the hem of the shirt he borrowed from Jaemin to sleep in the night before. The silk must feel nice against his skin, Jaemin thinks idly. He wonders if Jeno has anything similar where he’s from. “It’s because of that night, isn’t it?”

Jeno nods. Slow, but sure. His eyes never leaving Jaemin’s, Jeno reaches forward almost gingerly, his fingers skittering across Jaemin’s clothed knee, and his palm flattens against Jaemin’s thigh. His other hand finds Jaemin’s, and Jeno’s thumb rubs over Jaemin’s knuckles, in between his fingers. Jeno used to have webbing there, once upon a time, but now, there’s no external indication that Jeno isn’t what he seems. He’s been learning that Jeno isn’t at all what he had seemed like that night at all.

His breath ghosts across Jaemin’s.

“Jeno,” Jaemin starts, and then he stops. Not because he’s had a realization or anything, but because he just can’t find the words to say. Maybe: _we shouldn’t._ Maybe: _you’re in love with Mark._ Maybe: _I’m sorry. I’m not him._ Maybe: _I don’t want to be his replacement. I can’t._

Jeno’s lips form in the unfinished shape of Jaemin’s name, and Jaemin can’t find it in himself to push Jeno away, his hands stilling. Jeno is persistent, if nothing else, and he leans impossibly forward to tilt his head upwards and close his eyes and—

Jeno topples bodily onto the ground, his center of gravity having gone too off-kilter while trying to reach Jaemin, and Jaemin sits there, just staring at Jeno in an ungraceful pile on the ground, before his remaining neurons kick in. He’s on the floor in an instant, helping Jeno to his feet, and he dusts some imaginary dust off of Jeno’s pajama shirt.

“Are you alright?”

Jeno only winces, cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck, and he nods.

“Let’s go to the tub to check if you’re alright, hm?” Jaemin asks in what he’s aware sounds like a proposition of some sort. Jeno stares at him, and he clarifies, “So I can see if there are any bruises on your skin because of this fall.” Jaemin pauses and stares at the wall. “There’ll be water. And you can play with it once we’re done.”

Jeno’s eyes widen again, and he practically knocks Jaemin over in his haste to rush to Jaemin’s room. Jaemin doesn’t even know how he pointed himself in the direction of the largest water source in his home, but he chalks it up to one of Jeno’s innate abilities. Jaemin takes his time, putting the food away and taking note of just how many tuna sandwiches Jeno managed to scarf down, before he makes his way to his own room.

Jeno is waiting there, sitting balanced precariously on the edge of the tub, and his feet kick up into the air every so often. Jaemin must’ve forgotten to drain the tub in the morning, but he supposes that this is easier now. No need to draw another bath.

“Is this too cold for you?” Jaemin asks, leaning over to test the temperature of the water. It _is_ cold, but Jeno shakes his head. The depths of the ocean must be chillier than Jaemin expected. “Can you lift up your shirt for me?”

Jeno fell onto his front earlier, so Jaemin just wants to know if there are going to be any lasting bruises. Jeno’s stomach is pale and smooth and completely unmarred.

“Your arms, please.” Jeno holds his arms out, letting his shirt fall back down, and Jaemin rolls Jeno’s sleeves up his forearms. There aren’t any bruises on his arms, but his elbows look reddish. “It looks like you’re fine, Jeno. I guess I was wrong to be worried.”

Jaemin is about to say something else, but a flash of color catches his eye. Jeno’s nails, the ones on his hands and his feet, are all tinted a light shade of aqua that gleams in the sunlight, and Jaemin’s instantly reminded of the night he saw a boy with iridescent scales dotting the length of his body. He hadn’t noticed that the same colors carried over onto his human body somehow, and he takes Jeno’s hand, running his fingers over Jeno’s, so familiar yet so _not_ at the same time.

“I’m going to get going now,” Jaemin says abruptly, standing up, and he banishes all thoughts of Jeno in the water from his mind. “I have some things to take care of.”

Jeno shrugs before undressing and tumbling down into the water, and Jaemin takes it as a dismissal when all Jeno does is stay down there and refuse to come up.

But when Jaemin leaves the room, he almost swears he can hear a faint sigh. It must be the wind coming through the open window, he thinks. Just the wind.

 

 

Jeno spends an absurd amount of time in the bath, which Jaemin was expecting. He makes his way to the library, skimming his fingers over the spines of all the books before he finds the collections of fairy tales he packed away when he was younger. He pulls them out, dragging them off of the shelves and settling into a corner.

He flips through the pages until he finds the legends of a kingdom underneath the ocean, and he traces the drawing of what the artist imagined the undersea kingdom would look like. He wonders if any of it is built on truth, if the artist saw the curling spires of coral and the towers of limestone, or if they were all fanciful flights of imagination.

There’s a story written down about a girl from beneath the waves who loved a prince so much that she traded her voice for legs so that she could be with him. Jaemin keeps reading. She couldn’t make the prince fall in love with her, and when she couldn’t bring herself to kill him to save herself, she became a cloud of sea foam, her existence disappearing into nothingness.

It’s just a story, but Jaemin can’t help wondering— will this happen to Jeno? When Jeno can’t make Mark fall in love with him, will he have to plunge a dagger through the heart of the man he saved from a watery grave? Would he be able to do it, would he be able to look Mark in the eye and drive a dagger given to him for this sole purpose into his chest? Or will he, too, disappear into the morning fog that rolls in from the ocean, a consequence of his inaction and his cowardice?

Jaemin shakes his head. He really needs a hobby. His daydreams never turn out well for anyone involved. Maybe he should take up knitting instead.

He loses himself in the books, reading up on creatures that shouldn’t exist outside of the imaginations of lonely men, and he only realizes as he’s struggling to read under the dying light that he’s let too much time pass by. His first thought, the first thought that frantically bubbles to the forefront of his mind, is Jeno— is he alright, where did he go, why hasn’t he bothered Jaemin in the past few hours, did he _drown_ in the tub?

Jaemin’s footsteps ring out loud and clear in the empty hallways, and as soon as he skids to a halt in front of the bathroom door, he knows Jeno isn’t there. It’s a gut feeling, but his instinct is almost never wrong, and when he peers into the room, there’s nothing there but a wet towel.

“Jeno?”

No response.

Jaemin looks around, trying to figure out where Jeno might’ve gone and trying his hardest not to think _why didn’t I hear him leave_. The windows are closed, and there’s no sign of a struggle. Everything is in place, and Jaemin looks down. And there they are, on the marble tiles, a trail of wet footprints that leads from the tub to the door, and Jaemin follows it down the hallways and when they stop at the double doors that marks the entrance to his home, he stops, too.

He wrenches them open, and honestly, this is insane, isn’t it? Jaemin doesn’t know why he’s going through all this trouble for someone he just met, save for the fact that without him, one of his best friends wouldn’t be alive today. The footprints continue down the winding path that leads to the shore, and by the time Jaemin is starting to get tired of chasing divots in the sand, he sees him.

Jeno’s just a silhouette against the sunset, but there he is, sitting on the sand with his feet in the water, and Jaemin _runs_ , faster than he’s ever run before, kicking up sand behind him and getting all of his clothes dirty, until he reaches Jeno. And there, next to him—

“Jeno,” Jaemin says, his voice strangely high. Is he panicking? Or has he already accepted this as a part of his life? “Who is this?”

Another boy looks up at him, one whose hair sits on his head like a crown of particularly tangled seaweed, and Jaemin knows that’s not a regular boy. The tail that laps at the water behind him says otherwise. The boy stares at him with the same imperceptibly liquid eyes the way that Jeno did the night they met, and he opens his mouth to say something.

Jaemin doesn’t understand the noises he’s making, but Jeno does, and he laughs, an exhale of air that has Jaemin’s lungs feeling like they’re about to collapse.

“Who is this?”

The boy burbles something Jaemin doesn’t catch, and Jeno mouths it to Jaemin. Jaemin squints, motioning for him to repeat it.

“Chisun? Jison?”

Jeno’s eyebrows furrow. The boy rolls his eyes, something that Jaemin hadn’t previously thought was possible in fishpeople. Jeno tries again, shaping his lips around the sounds as best as he can.

“Jisun?” Almost there, Jeno seems to be gesturing. The other boy’s given up, his face sinking below the water until the only thing that’s left of him is a steady stream of bubbles that floats to the surface. “Jisung?”

Jeno brightens, nodding enthusiastically, and he grabs Jaemin’s wrist and yanks him down until he’s stumbling into the sand. He hits the sand hard, and Jeno’s arm comes up behind his back to steady him.

Jaemin looks over at Jeno, and the last embers of sunlight catch on his hair and make it burn crimson and gold. He’s grinning, his hands flapping around wildly as he tries to say something to Jisung but ends up just mouthing words Jaemin doesn’t know, and Jaemin feels his heart catch.

Jisung, in one swift movement, lifts himself out of the water and into Jeno’s lap, sending the surf splashing into Jaemin’s face and clothes. He winds his arms around Jeno’s waist, burying his face into Jeno’s stomach, and Jaemin watches as Jeno’s fingers come up to wind themselves through Jisung’s hair. Jisung is murmuring something against the fabric of Jeno’s pilfered shirt, and Jeno lets him. Jisung’s tail glints a deep navy blue, and it’s hard to pinpoint just where the scales stop and the skin starts.

Then, just as abruptly as he’d come up, Jisung slips off of Jeno’s lap and into the surf again. He sinks into the water until only his eyes show, and Jeno stands up, Jaemin following suit. Jeno waves, and after a poke in the side with an absurdly pointed nail, Jaemin does too. Jisung inclines his head, and with a swish of his tail, he’s gone.

They’re silent, and Jaemin feels like this was something larger than he could ever begin to comprehend. He doesn’t look when he feels fingers card through his own, when he feels Jeno’s head dip down to press against the back of his neck, when he feels wetness against his skin.

“Let’s go home,” Jaemin says instead, once Jeno’s body stops shaking, and Jeno nods, barely perceptible. He reaches for Jeno’s other hand so that it’s easier to walk side by side, and Jeno takes his hand.

That night, when Jeno hovers over Jaemin’s bed, Jaemin tugs his sheets aside and lets Jeno climb in. He buries his nose into Jeno’s hair. He still smells like the sea, like waves and storms, like thunder and lightning.

Jaemin decides, right then and there, that even though this is uncharted territory, that even though he can see himself drowning in this ocean, he wants to keep going.

 

 

Somehow, Jeno manages to insert himself seamlessly further into Jaemin’s life.

He wakes up with Jeno’s leg thrown haphazardly over his thigh more often than not, and he’s constantly having to peel Jeno’s arms away from where they’re latched around his neck. He’s becoming more and more aware of Jeno’s presence around him, which is weird because ever since that night on the beach, Jeno’s become progressively less and less clingy, which Jaemin supposes he should be thankful for. After all, Jeno doesn’t trail after him like a particularly lost puppy anymore, begging for treats and attention. Jaemin barely sees him at all, if he’s being perfectly honest.

Jeno’s routine goes a little bit like this: he wakes up, his body overly warm next to Jaemin’s during the hot summer night, and stares at Jaemin until Jaemin wakes up from somehow knowing that he’s being watched in his sleep. Then Jaemin has to wait until Jeno finally rolls out of bed so he himself can get up, because otherwise he has to climb over the other boy to get out, and Jeno always seems eager to just lay there and do nothing. Jaemin shepherds Jeno to wash up, after which he heads down to the kitchen to find something to feed Jeno. Jeno eats with him, shoveling whatever Jaemin’s made for him into his mouth and laughing obligingly at anything and everything Jaemin says.

Then, when Jaemin goes to clean up, he disappears.

The first time Jaemin looked behind him, expecting to see Jeno perched there on that chair but seeing only air, he almost lost his mind trying to find him, picking apart his home to look for a boy almost as big as he was. He’d come up with nothing but a handful of dust and several of his old and embarrassing diary entries stashed behind the couch, which he’d promptly burnt into ashes out back without even reading them. He spent another good half hour sitting morosely on the step leading up to his front door and staring out at the beach as if sheer will could bring Jeno back to him.

Jaemin gave up soon after that, retreating back to the safety of his own bed and telling himself that Jeno would be fine. He spent the first however many years of life he lived without Jaemin. He could survive a day. Jaemin had books to read and maps to memorize if he ever wanted to inherit his parents’ business, anyway, so he busied himself with that, drowning himself in shipping invoices and local tariffs and supply routes. Jaemin knew he could talk to his other friends, but he’d barely spoken to Mark and Donghyuck in recent memory, since he knew how busy they were with preparations for the engagement celebration coming up. He didn’t blame them, anyway. He always knew they would be perfect together, even when he was involved.

It was nightfall when Jaemin heard a knock on the closed door, and when he opened it, expecting the worst— expecting, perhaps, an officer to come by with Jeno’s lifeless body in his arms and word of how he’d found Jeno on the street; or Mark and Donghyuck with news of how they’d just seen someone dive into the ocean, never to resurface again; or, and Jaemin’s imagination is truly, truly going wild, that boy Jisung with legs stopping to tell him that Jeno never wanted to see him again— he saw only Jeno, beaming brightly before shuffling past Jaemin’s shoulder to head up to the washroom.

Jaemin watched him go, the wheels in his brain turning at a record-setting slowness before the cogs decided to stop spinning and he gave up trying to piece the puzzle together, deciding instead to join Jeno upstairs and to watch him try to figure out what exactly a bar of soap was used for, if not for eating.

Like he said, Jaemin actually has no idea where Jeno goes after he wakes up and gets fed.

All he knows is that Jeno likes to spend his mornings with him, goes somewhere else for the entirety of the day, and once the sun sets, he comes back to Jaemin with a full belly and an ever-present grin on his face. Jaemin pretends to be annoyed when Jeno inevitably comes back to his bed at the end of the night, shuffling over before throwing himself onto Jaemin, but he can’t keep it up for long.

“Had fun today?” Jaemin asks, resisting the urge to bend down to smell Jeno’s hair. He fails. Jeno, oddly enough, smells like a flower garden instead of his usual scent when he hasn’t been down by the water, which is somewhat reminiscent of the way rain smells when it first falls.

Jeno nods, pressing his face further into Jaemin’s neck, and Jaemin sighs, letting Jeno curl around him. It’s too warm. It’s quickly approaching the tail end of summer, but the days are still long and unbearably humid, and there’s no answer to the constant stickiness that seems to accompany being this close to someone else.

Jaemin hums. “I’m glad.” And then he asks, because he always asks, “So where did you go?”

And, because this always happens, because Jeno never, ever gives him a straight answer, he pulls back before he shrugs, an almost feline grin curving at the edges of his lips.

Jaemin sighs. Over the course of the past week, he’s long since resigned himself never to find out where exactly it is that Jeno goes during the daytime. Jeno always comes back feeling more chipper and lively than he was before he left, and Jaemin doesn’t want him to lose whatever kind of happiness he found out there.

So he just kicks the blanket off of himself and shoves it off to the side of the bed, and instead of needing some kind of comforter or pillow to help him sleep, he drapes Jeno’s arm over his waist and settles in for yet another night of dreamless sleep.

 

 

Jaemin tells himself he isn’t going to snoop.

Of course, that doesn’t happen. It takes a good week of stubbornly refusing to infringe on Jeno’s privacy for him to crack, but one night, Jeno comes home with a flower tucked behind his ear and it’s all Jaemin can do to keep himself from grabbing that flower and tossing it out of the window. Jeno takes it off himself anyway, plucking it from his hair and setting it down between them.

Jeno shifts, and Jaemin feels his heart stutter as Jeno leans in close, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight. And then Jeno pokes him in the nose, and Jaemin feels his breath leave his lungs.

“What did you do that for?”

Jeno shrugs, a common response for everything Jaemin asks him by now, and Jaemin laughs.

“Are you going to tell me where you went today?”

There’s the shrug, which Jaemin’s learned to expect by now, but then there’s also something in his smile that makes Jaemin wonder.

“Soon?”

A nod, and Jeno reaches for his hand, lacing their fingers together as he tucks his head underneath Jaemin’s chin. And once Jeno’s lulled to sleep and his heartbeat’s steadied, Jaemin can let himself breathe again.

The next morning, when Jeno makes his usual getaway while Jaemin cleans up, Jaemin drops the dishes and follows. It’s not hard; the only reason he hadn’t done so before was to help Jeno maintain some semblance of privacy. The curiosity is too much now, swallowing him whole and threatening to drown him, and he follows Jeno from a distance, watching as he picks his way through the snarls of seaweed on the wet sand. Jeno looks back every once in a while, as if he knows he’s being followed, and Jaemin has to duck behind a conveniently-placed boulder to avoid Jeno’s furtive glances.

It’s not long before Jaemin realizes where Jeno is going: the palace is only a short distance away from Jaemin’s own home, and they’re slowly making their way off of the beach and into the gardens that surround the palace. _The gardens. Flowers. The one in Jeno’s hair._

Jaemin’s starting to get an inkling of what Jeno’s doing there, and his suspicions are only confirmed when he sees Donghyuck, his hair tousled and messy the way it always is when he wakes up, and Mark, looking for all the world like he isn’t a prince but instead some peasant who can barely afford two sets of clothing. They welcome Jeno inside, and Jeno looks so excited to see them, practically bouncing on his heels, and when Mark claps a hand on Jeno’s back, steadying and friendly at the same time, Jeno smiles at him, sweet and tender, and _oh_ , Jaemin feels his heart ache.

He can’t take it. He’s a coward, so he runs, runs before any of the palace guards, or, god forbid, Jeno or Mark or Donghyuck see him.

Jaemin knows he’s been secluding himself as of late, but usually, they used to come over to his house and they’d drink and fool around and do whatever it was that friends who’ve known each other for their entire lifetimes did together. It’s not as if he’s made himself hard to reach, since they never really cared about needing to spend every single waking moment with each other to begin with, and it’s not as if they’re particularly busy, either. Mark and Donghyuck have some engagement party planned, but that isn’t even for a few weeks.

It’s not enough that he should be attracted to someone who’s obviously already painfully in love with the prince, but he’s even been replaced in his circle of friends, and that realization just makes everything so much worse.

He doesn’t cry, because that would be useless and dumb and annoying of him, but he does allow himself a few hours of staring out of the window and contemplating changing his name and moving to another kingdom before he slaps himself back into reality. He has numbers to review and names to memorize if he wants to inherit the business once he comes of age, and he won’t make any progress if all he’s doing is bemoaning his lack of love life.

Like clockwork, Jeno comes back once the sun sets below the horizon. Jaemin’s almost tempted to make like a starfish and send his limbs sprawling to each corner of his bed, but Jeno walks in with a bright grin and his clothes perfectly rumpled, and it’s apparent that he just washed up. Jaemin’s heart twists, and he reluctantly pulls his arms back from where they’d been casually laying across the pillows, and Jeno rolls into bed, curling up next to Jaemin as he always does.

Where anyone else would’ve looked warm and inviting in the candlelight, Jeno’s hair is so black that it shines a dull green, and it’s unearthly, sending shivers down Jaemin’s spine. But at the same time, Jeno’s presence relaxes him like nothing else, and he’s content to just lay there and look at Jeno’s face.

He’s staring at Jaemin, his gaze expectant, and Jaemin realizes he’s forgetting something. Their routine. Of course. He swallows.

“Where did you go today?” Jaemin asks, a question that he already knows the answers to, and this time, Jeno doesn’t follow the script.

Jeno reaches out to trail his knuckles down Jaemin’s face, brushing past his cheekbones and down to his jaw, and Jaemin closes his eyes.

He can’t bring himself to open his eyes when he feels Jeno settle in close to him, but he’s sure that he’s not imagining the breath that fans out against his lips. He doesn’t sleep at all, though, his heart racing too quickly for him to even dream of sleeping, and he’s sure that Jeno doesn’t either, even when he has his leg wrapped around Jaemin’s thigh and Jaemin’s arm curled protectively around his head.

Jaemin doesn’t want to sleep— he just wants to lose himself in this feeling, in the warmth that suffuses his body whenever Jeno touches him, in the way that Jeno’s body feels so _right_ against his.

 

 

Jaemin wakes up slowly.

He’s always been a little bit slow to wake, always tending to prefer enjoying his nights to his days, but this morning feels different. There’s a stray tuft of hair that isn’t his poking up his nose, and he opens his eyes to Jeno tucked against him, his lips pressed against Jaemin’s neck and his fingers buried in Jaemin’s hair. Jaemin tries to move, but he can’t; his thigh’s slotted in between Jeno’s legs, and when Jaemin shifts just slightly, he ends up jostling the other boy, who makes a noise halfway between a whine and a sigh.

“Good morning,” Jaemin murmurs, reaching up to card his fingers through Jeno’s hair, and Jeno makes another soft sound, bumping his hips against Jaemin’s again. Jaemin’s still half-asleep, still operating primarily on autopilot, so he circles his arms around Jeno’s waist, thumbing Jeno’s hips and tugging him closer.

Jeno whines in response, a sound that lights all of Jaemin’s nerves on fire, and when Jeno curls his fingers around Jaemin’s nape and drags him down, brushing his lips against Jaemin’s cheek, Jaemin firmly jerks awake for good, pushing Jeno away from him and holding him at arm’s length. Jeno blinks awake, and a grin curls across his face, small and kittenish, and Jaemin’s struck with the sudden desire to kiss him. No, it’s not sudden, not at all. It’s been building for a while, he realizes. A very long time.

“Let’s get ready,” Jaemin murmurs, and Jeno wrinkles his nose before shuffling closer instead. He latches onto Jaemin again, and Jaemin has to shove him off before he does something totally reckless and stupid like push Jeno back down and kiss him for all he’s got. _Save that for Mark,_ he thinks bitterly. “Let’s go.”

Jeno trails after him, even following Jaemin into the washroom and trying to squeeze himself in when Jaemin just needs to relieve himself.

“Stay outside,” Jaemin hisses, and he only catches a glimpse of Jeno’s pout when he shuts the door on his face. He’s still waiting there when Jaemin’s done, bounding past Jaemin to wash his face, and he’s out in record time, following on Jaemin’s heels when he goes to the kitchen. Jaemin fixes something quick up for the both of them, something with plenty of fish that makes Jeno’s eyes sparkle. He could watch him forever, he muses, or as long as Jeno’s willing to let him. If getting close to Mark was Jeno’s objective for coming up on land, then there’s no doubt in Jaemin’s mind that he’s succeeding with how much Donghyuck and Mark seem to love him.

Jeno finishes up quick, scarfing his food down like he’s been starved for years, and Jaemin readies himself to be met with an empty space where Jeno’s supposed to be when he turns his back to pick up Jeno’s dishes. Instead, Jeno’s still there, blinking up at Jaemin.

“Are you done?” Jeno nods. Jaemin’s throat goes dry. He doesn’t know what to do anymore: Jeno’s never stayed this long, and the script’s run out. “You, er. Is there anything you want to do?”

Jeno cocks his head to the side before he reaches for Jaemin’s wrist and tugs him up. Jeno drags him to the library, pulling some books out of the shelves before plopping down on the carpet and motioning for Jaemin to sit down next to him. He puts one on Jaemin’s lap and points to it, looking back up at Jaemin.

“You want me to read this for you?” Jeno prods the book again, flipping it open to a random page. “This is a book about,” and Jaemin squints at the cover, “the principles of trade. Are you sure you want to hear this?” In response, Jeno lays his head on Jaemin’s shoulder and makes himself comfortable. “Well, if that’s what you want.”

So Jaemin reads to Jeno about all of the different kingdoms his family’s ever traded with, about where they get their cotton and silks from and where they trade their seafood and salt to. It’s boring and just reading about it makes Jaemin’s eyes blur by the time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, and it’s obvious that Jeno feels the same. Jeno’s head droops, threatening to fall onto Jaemin’s chest, and Jeno’s clearly had enough, because he swats the book out of Jaemin’s hand mid-sentence and clambers into his lap.

“Jeno—” is all Jaemin manages to get out before Jeno presses two fingers to Jaemin’s lips and leans in. Jaemin’s head starts to spin from their closeness, and Jeno’s nose bumps Jaemin’s, and he pulls back, giggling. It’s an addicting sound. Jaemin wants more.

He tugs Jeno closer to him by his hips, thinking _to hell with it_ , and when Jeno cups Jaemin’s face in his hands, smoothing his thumbs over Jaemin’s cheekbones, and smiles down at him, Jaemin knows, suddenly, that Mark wasn’t the one Jeno came for anymore. Jeno presses his forehead against Jaemin’s, and Jaemin slips his fingers under the hem of the shift Jeno’s wearing to thumb at his skin, and—

“Oh, ugh, my poor _eyes_ , would you two get a room already?”

That’s Donghyuck’s voice.

“Maybe we should leave, I think we might’ve come at a bad time.”

Dammit, that’s Mark’s voice.

Jaemin groans, knocking his forehead into Jeno’s chest, and he cracks an eye open at the doorway. Mark is holding a bottle of wine and a long cord of fabric, Donghyuck’s carrying a picnic basket, and they’re both wearing shit-eating grins.

“Get up, we’re kidnapping you,” Donghyuck says, brandishing a baguette at Jaemin, and Jeno climbs out of his lap, wringing his hands together. “Jeno was supposed to keep you distracted until we were ready, but I think he’s doing too good of a job at it. Up and at ‘em, Jaemin.”

Jaemin stands on wobbly legs, gratefully taking the hand that Jeno offers him and straightening his clothes, and he scowls when Donghyuck casts a knowing glance at him. “Shut up, I can already hear the little gnomes in your brain working overtime. Stop thinking so hard.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, I have better things to think about anyway.” Donghyuck smiles, sickly sweet, and Mark huffs before turning to Jaemin. He sets the bottle of wine down before looping the fabric around Jaemin’s head, covering his eyes in a makeshift blindfold, and Jaemin blinks at the sudden darkness.

“Wow, kinky. Didn’t expect you to have it in you, Mark.”

He hears Mark snort. “Let’s get going, we don’t have all day.”

Jaemin follows as they take him out of his house, Jeno’s fingers warm in his, and a laugh escapes his lips as he thinks about how strange it is for he and Jeno to be holding onto each other right now, one who can’t speak and one who can’t see. Jeno’s fingers tighten around his in alarm, and Jaemin squeezes back. “It’s nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

He smells flowers, and he knows where he is even before Mark comes up behind him to undo the blindfold. Jaemin opens his eyes to one of the palace’s most beautiful gardens, the flowers blooming all around them. Donghyuck sets the food down on the table, and Jaemin stares at the spread. “What is this?”

“Your belated birthday present,” Mark announces with a flourish, and his eyes crinkle. “Your birthday picnic got interrupted, so Jeno helped us plan a new one. Sorry, we kind of stole him from you and asked him not to say anything.”

“Yeah, and you were busy with work and being a good son, so we left you to it,” Donghyuck says. “And, well. We kind of missed you.”

“Planning for the m-word makes me want to die, though. You should’ve left me to drown that night,” Mark says blandly, and Donghyuck smacks him on the arm. Mark whirls around to give Donghyuck a wounded stare. “What!”

“Stop joking about that, fuckface! I hate it so much when you do that!”

Jaemin catches Jeno’s gaze across the table, and Jeno rolls his eyes over at the two squabbling next to them.

“You could’ve told me why you were practically ignoring me all week,” Jaemin whispers, and Jeno raises his eyebrows. “Oh, uh. I mean. You could’ve given me a sign or something. You do have hands, you know.”

Jeno turns his eye roll on Jaemin, and he mimes zipping his lips closed. Jaemin hides a smile behind his fork. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

 

 

The afternoon air is cool, blowing across Jaemin’s hair and kissing his skin as he walks along the beach, his shoes in one hand. Jeno’s right next to him, his presence comforting and warm, and Jaemin feels the back of Jeno’s hand bump his with every step they take.

“How was it?” Jaemin asks, and Jeno looks over. “The picnic?” Jeno shrugs and continues looking ahead, and Jaemin feels, oddly enough, like he’s been saying the wrong things all along. “So, about earlier—”

Jeno looks at him, and Jaemin’s throat goes dry. Again. He’s never had trouble at all picking up even the sons and daughters of aristocrats and noblemen, but somehow, when it comes to Jeno, he can’t find the words he wants to say.

“What I wanted to say is,” Jaemin starts, and he drops his shoes on the sand and turns to face Jeno, “that I think I’ve been a bit stupid lately.”

Jeno quirks an eyebrow up at him as if to say _oh really, tell me more_ , and wow, Jaemin had no idea he could do that. He wonders what else Jeno can do, what else he’s learned here.

“It’s true. I’ve been made aware of the fact that you never really liked Mark, although I suppose that should’ve been common sense.”

Jeno huffs. During their lunch, Mark told Jaemin all about how Donghyuck was jealous that some mute kid was trying to make some moves on his fiancé, but it quickly subsided once Donghyuck figured out that Jeno just wanted to learn how to get closer to Jaemin through Mark. “I just wanted you to not be so lonely anymore,” Donghyuck sighed. “There’s only so much fun you can have on your own.”

“And I wanted to ask you why you never made it obvious to me that you liked me, but I figured out that that’s what you’ve been trying to do all along, huh? Coming up to see me, staying with me when you could’ve gone anywhere else, leeching off of my bed and my pantry?” Jaemin takes Jeno’s thin wrists in his hands, stepping closer to him as the waves lap at his bare feet. “You’re persistent, aren’t you?”

Jeno snorts, but there’s pink smattering his cheeks, and Jaemin takes the opportunity to lean in and fit his hands over Jeno’s hips and tug him closer to kiss him. Jeno’s lips part easily under his, and he makes this small noise of encouragement, so Jaemin tilts his head, tasting strawberries and roses on Jeno’s lips, and somewhere deeper, somewhere underneath those tastes, he can taste the sea. Jeno’s the first to pull away, his hands resting lightly on Jaemin’s shoulders, and he swallows. Jaemin’s entranced by him, by the glint of the afternoon sun off of his hair, and he’s about to lean in again when Jeno stops him with a hand to his chest.

Jaemin blinks. What? Is he misreading the situation? He’s about to ask just what’s going on when Jeno clears his throat, turning his face to cough into his fist, before looking back at Jaemin.

“Hi, Jaemin,” Jeno says in a voice that sounds so smooth, so young, and so perfectly _Jeno_. “It took you this long, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin says, only about fifty percent sorry because the rest of his brain is too preoccupied with the fact that Jeno can speak now, and he loops his arms around Jeno’s waist, pressing their bodies together. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Jeno sniffs. “You better. After all, I came all this way for you. This is really the least you could do.”

“Promise.” Jaemin licks across Jeno’s lips, chasing the taste of him, and Jeno practically melts, falling into him, his fingers tangling into Jaemin’s hair. “I’ll make it worth your time, and more.”

 

 

 

 

“Brother, _please_ ,” Jeno whines, tugging morosely at his own fins as if he can make them disappear with sheer willpower and determination. “I _love_ him.”

Doyoung doesn’t look convinced. “You said all humans were disgusting creatures who didn’t know what to do with their fins and had worms in between their legs.”

Jeno pauses. “Alright, so maybe I did. You really can’t blame me for that, though. Humans are strange.”

“You’re not helping your case.”

“The fact of the matter is,” and Jeno pauses to stare longingly up at the moon that shines down at them, which is a bit dramatic, but Doyoung loves theatrics, “I met this prince. He was so beautiful. I saved him from drowning, but he isn’t the one I’m in love with. It’s his friend, one who looks like those statues that we found in the grotto, remember? He’s so lovely. Brother, please. I want him. And the only way I can be with him is if you can make me a human. Get rid of this ugly thing and give me two of them, chop chop.”

Doyoung fidgets with the webbing in between his thumb and his index fingers, the way he always does when he’s nervous. “I told you the last two times that it’s not a process I can reverse, Jeno. If you decide you don’t like it anymore, you can’t come back. And I’ll miss you. Jisung will miss you, too.”

“Jisung will find someone else to pretend to hate and then come swimming back to once he’s had enough,” Jeno says flippantly. “Please, my magic isn’t good enough to do it on my own, so I need you. If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself. _Please_ , don’t you love me?”

That, Jeno knows, is the killing point, and sure enough, Doyoung’s lip trembles.

“Alright,” Doyoung finally acquiesces, and Jeno resists the urge to cheer. Doyoung looks absolutely wrecked, but all merpeople have to leave their homes upon adulthood. It just so happens that Jeno wants to leave for somewhere far beyond the reaches of their undersea kingdom. “But only on three conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“You won’t have your voice until you know that someone loves you enough for it to have all been worth it. You have to come see Jisung by the water on the night of each full moon to tell him that you still love him, and you’ll report back to me if anything goes wrong whenever there’s a new moon.”

“And the last one?”

“Take care of yourself, baby brother,” Doyoung says, his eyes glinting violet in the shine of the balls of bioluminescent algae that bob all around them. Jeno supposes that he’ll miss this place. That he’ll miss this limestone castle and their coral gardens and even his three pet marimos. He almost feels his resolve start to waver, but he forces himself to keep his heart steady, to think of the wondrous world that lies beyond the surface. “Take care not to get your heart broken.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jeno says, and Doyoung leans in to press his hand against Jeno’s, murmuring a series of words into Jeno’s skin. Within seconds, he can feel the change happening, his tail separating into two, and he closes his eyes.

_Wait for me, boy with legs. Wait for me._

**Author's Note:**

> wow it’s finally over!! ty for reading this far, i hope you enjoyed it!! i love mermaidy things and as soon as i saw mfal jeno i knew He Was The One <3 also bc i thought it’d be interesting to have a mermaid who doesn’t fall for the prince yanno >__< ty ines for holding my hand and letting me scream at you about this, couldn’t have done it without you!! feel free to ask me questions abt this au on cc or on twt or wherever else you have me on!!
> 
> (recommended listening is [ebb and flow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKo5bXLcbcs) from nagi no asukara! ... or at least that's what i listened to for 90% of this lol >__<)


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